


Rehab Choke Up

by vulgarshudder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:14:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulgarshudder/pseuds/vulgarshudder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative Universe - John Watson`s sister Harry is yet again sobering up in a private rehab clinic. While visiting her he meets a Doctor Holmes, whom is both arrogant and brilliant. Falling for the staff is not apart of the recovery process though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John pushed his hands deeper into his parker`s pockets feeling the gritty lint trapped in the seams. He had stopped in the car park, looking at the entrance to the modest and newly built building. It was made up of a two story main building, with a single story newer extension stretching from one side, lined with windows. He had taken a taxi from the station, and the building was situated in a rather out of the way spot surrounded by fields and small woodlands, dotted with the occasional secluded private house. It was all designed to be calm and private, one could almost mistake it for the countryside if it wasn`t for the occasional overhead gentle rumble of Jets from the nearby Heathrow airport, that broke the illusion and reminded you that you were in fact in the deepest suburbs of London. 

He shifted his weight slightly making the gravel under his feet crunch. How many times had he stood in front of a place like this? The same amount of times Harry had said she was going to get sober that`s what.

John Watson had come to visit his alcoholic sister once again on her attempts to get sober in Rehab. Her partner had finally had enough of her, which had pushed her alcoholism from functional to rock bottom. So his father had offered to pay for a private in-treatment program, to help her through withdrawal and start treating her for the anxiety disorder John suspected she had.

She had this time admitted she had a problem, which was supposed to be the first step but John didn`t feel any optimism. She drank regardless, they had both known it had been a problem for years.

But his father was more blinded by hope and really thought this would be the time she dried out and put her life back on track. John did not share this opinion, and his reluctance to get emotionally involved with his sister`s recover was what was making him hesitate about going to the entrance and buzzing himself in.

John was shaken out of his internal monologue someone brushed passed him, and he saw the back of an open long coat billowing around it`s owner, only the back of a head of dark curls. They pulled open the swing doors and disappeared inside the building, reminding John the path he should be taking.

Besides it was too chilly a spring day to stand around, and it would be a wasted cab fare.  
He pulled open the heavy doors to the reception area, and he was struck by the attempt to cheer up the sterility of a treatment clinic by using a cheerful colour scheme of pale yellow walls and dusky peach carpets rather than the NHS white and smooth tiled floors he was used to at hospitals. 

John explained to the nurse he was here to see Harry Watson, and his relation. He was made to sign his name on a visitors sheet and was directed towards the women`s wards where she would likely still be so early in her in stay.

He was buzzed through the inner doors, but otherwise patients were free to wonder about as they pleased. In the opposite direction of the ward he saw a recreation room, with people in sweats and dressing gowns watching TV. John imagined there were various rooms with group sessions and therapy going on he could not see, and he headed in the direction of the sleeping rooms.

It was a mixed clinic, but the men's and women`s wards were kept separate, with everyone with their own private room. He read the names next to each door and could not see Harry`s, and eventually he had run out of doors and going any further lead to a bathrooms and any further would lead to the men`s bedrooms. He was pretty sure she would not be there.

Rather lost he was about to back track to find someone staff like when someone turned the corner. They were tall and wearing a fitted shirt and tailored trousers, dressed smarter than the nurses. "Excuse me..." John ventured.

The man seemed slightly irritated to be interrupted on his business but stopped none the less. "Yes?" He asked in a deep cold voice.

"I`m looking for Harry Watson."

The man didn`t seem to register the name and only stared back at John. The shorter man elaborated: "An alcoholic, admitted last week..." He ventured hoping that would ring some more bells.

"Ah..." The other man`s expression changed and eased up on the ice stare a bit. "You must be her brother."

"Yes." John glanced up and down the other man again. He saw a plastic white tag clipped to Sherlock`s pocket. "I`m sorry, are you a nurse or doctor here?"

"Doctor. Doctor Holmes." The man replied curtly. "But Harry Watson is not my patient."

Everything started to click for John, the arrogance and coldness, all the marks of a doctor with a god complex. He`d come to know many doctors like that in his own medical career.

"Well I was just wondering where her room was." John put on a polite smile.

The other doctor looked put out to be asked something so trivial. "Around the corner, 3rd door on the left." He directed John to a short corridor of rooms he hadn`t noticed.

"Thank you." John kept up his politeness. "Dr. Holmes."

Seeming satisfied to no longer being bothered with such banal matters as relatives, the doctor left John to find the room himself. It didn`t take long this was a small clinic, and with the same trepidation he had found earlier he hesitated wrapping his knuckles on the door and called "Harry..."


	2. Chapter 2

Harry looked downright pathetic by the window. She was going through the initial stages of withdrawal, with the physical edge being taken off with Valium, which the clinic would then ween her off. They had tip toed around the subject really, John inquiring about her current health and progress. Now was not the time to talk about the future, because they both knew that even if she managed to finish the program, and even stay sober., more than likely she would relapse, and they`d have to start this whole cycle over again.

But she was his sister, all he could do for now was offer her support by being there, and he also had to support his father. Give him hope that his little girl was being supported and was going to get better this time and no longer drink her life away.

With that thought as he looked over his sister tired looking sister, he wished he wouldn`t get so emotionally involved again.

John put on his best brave face, "Harry I have to go. I`ll visit again soon."

Harry nodded, barely acknowledging his presence. John wasn`t sure what was worse, this or the tears of self pity that would inevitably come. He was here to support, not cure, he reminded himself.

"Take Care." John said in parting, closing the door behind himself extra quietly. He did not want to be involved in this roller-coaster, and he left the clinic without even finding the nurse in charge of Harry`s care and treatment plan. He didn@t want to be involved with that, his father could take that burden.

After hastilly signing his name out on the visitor sheet he avoided the receptionists stare and once he was through the doors facing the car park he was hit with how calm it was.

It had been harder than he expected, to keep himself emotionally detached. That was always his downfall as a doctor, becoming involved. It was near impossible when it was his own family.

John stared up at the sky to see another silver jet glinting in the sky. He wished at this very moment to be gone far from here, somewhere on one of those planes; to the Bahamas maybe.

But looking around at the quiet suburbs, somewhere bordering Berkshire John thought to make the most of his trip and to walk a bit, as he hit the small road leading to the clinic he noticed an informal footpath that must snake around the grounds through a wooded area. Thinking it the perfect place to clear his thoughts he decided to detour along the path, picking through the rotten twigs and leaves left over from winter, the trees above ready for the first bloom of spring.

John started to reminisce about his Army training days, and survival exercises through woods in the English countryside, lugging kit bags around and sharing portable stove top made cups of tea. His leg started to ache, but he ignored the limp as he shuffled through the broken branches and leaves covering the footpath.

His reverie was broken by the distinctive sound of Zippo lighter being flicked open in one movement, causing him to look in that direction.

There sitting on a bench just further ahead of the path was the doctor from earlier, back in his long coat and with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck. He was bringing a lighter up to a cigarette, where it glowed as he inhaled, before he snapped the metal lighter closed and put it somewhere in his coat pocket in one fluid practiced motion.

John had rambled along the path closer, his hands deep in his pocket. "Wondering when Spring will arrive." He said in a polite attempt to small talk.

The dark haired man`s brows furrowed slightly as he inhaled from his cigarette, removing it from his lips to let plumes of leave his mouth. He didn`t seem interested in the weather. "They do not allow smoking in the hospital grounds." He explained.

John nodded with a knowing smile, "I`m a doctor myself, I know how health and safety rules can be." Long were the days of staff smoking rooms, filled with doctors and nurses getting their nicotine fix in during their break times." Now you weren`t even supposed to smoke on hospital property, even though nearly all the staff and patients found a secluded spot to indulge their habit.

Without even looking at him the other Doctor`s eyes narrowed as he seemed to process the new information. "Interesting." Was all he said.

John half laughed, "Interesting?" What was so interesting about him?

Doctor Holmes gave John a final once over, "You say your a doctor, but you`ve been away some where exotic you have a tan after the dead of winter. But not a typical doctor`s holiday your tan is uneven, and that coupled with the grown out severe hair cut and limp I`m wondering..." He let his eyes go back to the woods up through the bare branches to the skyline. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"I beg your pardon." John replied taken aback.

"Was your tour of duty in the army in Afghanistan or Iraq? The one you were injured in, and are now living on an army pension, giving you plenty of time to visit your alcoholic sister." Holmes was waiting for his confirmation.

John took a moment to take in the barrage of information. "How did you...?" 

The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette, "It was quite obvious...I merely observed."

There was a moment of silence before John cleared his throat. "Afghanistan." Psychiatrists had always creeped him out. It was rare for them to be this perceptive though, it seemed like a dangerous combination.

"Hm." A slight smile twitched at the dark haired man`s lips, before he took a satisfied puff of his cigarette. 

"You spoke to Harry?" John queried.

Holmes half chucked to himself. "I told you I observed, I have not spoken to your sister once."

John had to hand it to him. "That`s pretty..." He struggled to find an appropriate word that wouldn`t stroke the doctor`s ego more and failed, "Brilliant." 

The other doctor`s blue eyes shifted onto Watson again, he was obviously pleased. "That`s not from her file or anything is it..." John asked nervously.  
The other man seemed disappointed at the suggestion, "Please, Dr. Watson, I have no need to resort to such boring methods." He finally turned to John to lean closer, his cigarette dangling from his fingers away from them to stop the smoke coming between them. "When all I need to do is look." John watched the blue eyes go over him again, more slowly, as if taking in every secret John had to offer.

"Brilliant." John said in a small voice. He offered his hand out between them. "John Watson." He introduced himself.

The other man regarded the hand, before deciding to take it with his larger one in a firm but brief shake. "The name`s Sherlock Holmes."

"Well meeting you Sherlock." John gestured at what was left of the cigarette. "I`ll leave you to your fag break." And he got up from the bench. "Maybe I`ll see you another time, Harry's got another 65 days I think." He said wearily.

Sherlock leant back to look up at John. "I don`t doubt I will." And gaunt man gave a weird kind of half smile, that seemed to know more than he was letting on.

Psychiatrists creeped him out, John thought again as he left the bench to head back up the path.


End file.
